“Grey Jenny slowed to a canter, then a trot, and finally walked. She had outrun the post office men, and it was as though she knew that danger had passed – and also as though she knew where she was going. Raider Tom was more or less a passenger now. It was the most he could do just to stay upon her back. He let her go whichever way she fancied. It was all much of a muchness to him where they ended up.
“That she took him to a cave should not perhaps have come as a surprise. The cave was well known to both her and Tom, for it was where he had on several occasions found refuge in the company of Dick Turpin, therein to count spoils and celebrate the successful taking of another haul.
“He dismounted, crying out with pain, and staggered into the cave’s mouth. He was discovered within that stony maw some three days later by a local woodsman. He was, by then, quite dead.”
Quatermain spread out his hands.
“And there, gentlemen,” said he, “my Taduki vision ended and I came round. Make of it what you will. For my own part, I am convinced it is germane to our present crisis. I do not know how. The specifics are not obvious. If I have learned anything from these regressions into my past lives, though, it is that they are instructive. They do not occur randomly. There is a purpose and a meaning intrinsic to them. Dreams have practical value, visions all the more so.”
“Do you,” said Holmes, “believe this particular vision of yours showed where we might find Umslopogaas?”
“The cave in the woods? Yes. I even know its whereabouts. Epping Forest.”
“Dick Turpin was rumoured to use a cave in Epping Forest as a hideout,” I said. “If I recall rightly, it lies somewhere up near Loughton Camp, the Iron Age fort.”
“That certainly sounds familiar,” said Quatermain. “A name like that flitted through Tom Chalmers’s thoughts, even as he was slowly dying. I can only assume, then, that that is where Umslopogaas is now. Why else would my vision have directed me thither?”
“Why else indeed?” Holmes remarked drolly. “It may interest you to learn that Umslopogaas was spotted this afternoon in Hackney Marshes.”
“Really? Well then, that lends weight to the possibility that he could now be in Epping Forest. The one location is a mere two or three miles from the other.”
“He was seen in the company of a boy of five or six years old, an African like himself.”
“A child?”
“According to our eyewitness. Would there be any reason that you can think of why Umslopogaas would ally himself with a child? Does he have a son?”
“None that I know of, and certainly at his age it is unlikely he would have one so young.”
“Could the boy possibly be the witch-doctor from Silasville?” I said.
“I very much doubt it,” said Quatermain. “Wizardry is a complex art, one which takes years to learn. No one of such tender years could possibly master it, and no one who has not yet achieved manhood would even be considered for initiation into the mysteries of magic.”
“The boy appeared to be leading Umslopogaas,” Holmes said.
“He may even have hypnotised him,” I added.
Quatermain shook his head. “It cannot be. There must be some other explanation. All the same, I am now more convinced than before that Umslopogaas must be at Loughton Camp.”
“You intend, I suppose, to travel there,” said Holmes.
“I can do naught else.”
“And forthwith?”
“Why delay?” said Quatermain. “Might I ask if you and Dr Watson would accompany me? You have both proved yourselves worthy comrades in the field and I should be glad to have you by my side.”
“Accompany you on what would appear to be, to any right-thinking person, a wild goose chase?” said Holmes.
“Well, if you are going to be an ass about it…” With a gesture of irritation, Quatermain rose to his feet.
“As a matter of fact, Quatermain, I believe Watson and I shall join you.”
I darted Holmes a look. “Really?”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “A jaunt out into the countryside. What could be more enlivening?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
JOURNEY TO EPPING FOREST
Quatermain had a cab waiting outside, and driver and horses alike were familiar. It was the same hackney in which we had travelled that afternoon. The cabman, as he saluted us with forefinger to forelock, looked exceedingly content with his lot, by which I could only infer that Quatermain was rewarding him well above the going rate for his services.
“We met again at the stables, didn’t we, Tucker?” Quatermain said to the cabman. “I brought back Remus to be reunited with Romulus, and who should be there but the very fellow hoping for that eventuality. We had words, not all of them ill-tempered, and now we have come to an accommodation that is, I think, mutually beneficial.”
“More than that, Mr Quatermain,” said Tucker.
“I shall ride up front beside you. The evening breeze should help blow away the last of the cobwebs. Mr Holmes and Dr Watson can occupy the interior.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Epping Forest, my good man. Loughton Camp. You know it?”
“Know of it. I can get us near enough that signposts can do the rest.”
“Excellent. Onward!”
Facing us on the front seat of the cab was a rifle whose barrel was so long and bore so wide that it had to be an elephant gun. Beside it sat a bandolier replete with thick, finger-length double-eight cartridges.
As the cab started off, I nodded at the rifle. “Next to that thing, my Webley looks rather puny.”
“You have the pistol on you nonetheless,” said Holmes. “Th at is good. We may need all the firepower we can get.”
“You don’t honestly think there is anything to this cave nonsense?”
“Let us say I am keeping an open mind.”
“You astound me.”
“Constantly? Or just at the present moment?”
“We are pursuing not a firm lead but some half-baked fancy arising from a drug-induced hallucination. That is hardly congruous with the Sherlock Holmes I know.”
“Youthful exuberance in one as aged as Quatermain should be endorsed, not curtailed.”
“Is it that in him you see a fellow-traveller, one who indulges in narcotics just as you do? Is that behind this?”
“You wound me, Watson. As if my occasional predilection for cocaine is in any way comparable to Quatermain’s fondness for the altered states brought on by this Taduki stuff! As if I would act upon so tenuous a motive!”
He lowered his voice somewhat, even though it seemed impossible that Quatermain, outside, could hear us.
“I do wonder whether Umslopogaas will be in the cave. There is no reason to think so and every reason to think not. Quatermain merely had an hallucination about being a highwayman, and an hallucination is nothing upon which to base a decision. It would be like building a castle upon a cloud. The issue here is not whether Quatermain is right but that he is almost certainly wrong. Proving it is going to be rather satisfying.” Holmes gave an enigmatic little smile. “Unless, that is, he is right unwittingly.”
“Unwittingly?”
“It may be that he has known all along where Umslopogaas is. He has been in possession of some insight, hidden even to himself, which the Taduki has unveiled. The drug has brought a memory to the surface, much as a seven per cent solution of cocaine sometimes spurs my mind into making connections hitherto unperceived.”
“A memory perhaps of a conversation he and Umslopogaas had about a certain cave in Epping Forest,” I said. “Could it be that Quatermain mentioned it to Umslopogaas once? Could it even be that he read a story about Dick Turpin’s cave and it has lodged somewhere in the lower reaches of his mind, below the threshold of conscious thought?”
“Not quite. I am thinking more of the symbol in their little den in Victoria Park.”
“A circle within a triangle within a circle. You have fathomed its import?”
“A tricorn hat.”
“Quatermain even mentioned such a hat when recounting his vision of a past life as Tom Chalmers. And does a tricorn, when viewed from above, not resemble a circle within a triangle?”
“In its most simplified form, yes.”
“So then,” Holmes continued, “a tricorn hat positioned inside a larger circle might be taken to denote a highwayman who has taken refuge in…”
“In the mouth of a cave,” I said. “Gracious me, yes.”
“And then consider the pennies which accompanied the symbol. What might they represent?”
“Stolen loot.”
“An extra element to cement the symbol’s full meaning.”
“So Umslopogaas did leave a clue after all.”
“Umslopogaas or someone else – perhaps the strange child he was seen with.”
“And Quatermain made the connection with Dick Turpin’s cave by means of smoking Taduki.”
“The drug provided the solution in the guise of a waking dream,” said Holmes. “Quatermain knew the answer all along, without knowing he knew it. The Taduki dredged it up from the nether reaches of his mind. And of course, alongside the symbol, there was a further clue that Loughton Camp was Umslopogaas’s destination.”
“The speck of anomalous soil?”
“Just so. In certain areas in and around London the earth is a particular mix of sand and clay known as the Bagshot Beds. The sand is fine-grained with a high quartz content, while the clay is the whitish kind called ‘pipe-clay’. I was able to identify the sample I gathered as coming from the Lower Bagshot Beds, a specific geological stratum that is found on the western edge of Essex, not least around Epping.”
“Then that explains why you agreed to go along with Quatermain on this expedition. It has nothing to do with his Taduki vision and everything to do with the clues left at Victoria Park.”
“Hard evidence,” said Holmes with a nod. “However, though it shames me to admit this, it took Quatermain and his drug to make sense of it all. Without his contribution, I do not know if I would have divined the meaning of the symbol – certainly not so soon. Through a confluence of Quatermain’s approach to the mystery and mine, we arrived at an answer I could accept. The one shored up the other.”
“The question remains, why would Umslopogaas go to Loughton Camp? Why has he allowed this unknown boy to lead him there, if that is what happened?”
“Umslopogaas may be acting against his will. The boy may have some hold over him.”
“Compelling him by blackmail, perhaps.”
“Or some other, more exotic means. Drugs, for example.”
“His ‘glazed’ look.”
“That in conjunction with the song the boy was singing,” said Holmes. “Together it is possible they might have a mesmeric effect, sapping Umslopogaas’s willpower and making him the boy’s thrall.”
“It is an outlandish supposition.”
“But remains within the bounds of plausibility, just.”
“While you are in an expansive mood, Holmes,” I said, “is there any chance you might tell me now about the data you gleaned in Kensington Gardens, concerning the sniper? I have held off from asking you about it.”
“But you can contain your curiosity no longer. Very well. Now is as good a time as any. The discoveries I made in the sniper’s hide weave yet tighter the tapestry of this case. The shell casings, you know about. Another of my discoveries was a boot print in the soil. A highly distinctive one.”
“It matched the print you found in Mrs Biddulph’s yard?”
“Bravo, Watson!” Holmes said brightly. “In both instances I noted a Y-shaped crack in the heel, not unlike a lightning bolt. The two prints cannot but have been left by the same sole. The shoe sizes were identical, as were the tread patterns, but it is that singular crack that puts the matter beyond doubt. He who shot at us is also he who lurked outside Wade’s flat.”
“And who presumably administered the Devil’s Dust to Wade.”
“That we cannot state with any certainty, but the prima facie evidence, as the lawyers would have it, is compelling. The third discovery I made in the shrubbery was a hair caught in the fork of a twig. It was short, coarse and freshly shed.”
“How do you know it was freshly shed?”
“I could tell from the glossiness of it, particularly its root bulb which was still coated with sebum, a secretion that tends to dry out quite quickly. The hair can only have come from the sniper. Its main distinguishing characteristic, however, was its hue. It was red.”
“The Fanthorpes,” I said. “Their hair is reddish.”
“Hardly. Sandy is not red. The red I am talking about is a deep fiery shade of the colour. My fourth and final find was the butt of a cigarette. It had been freshly smoked and the brand was distinctive. Herman and Canard.”
“I have never heard of them.”
“They are a South African manufacturer. They use Turkish tobacco, which is very popular in that country, but it is rare to find their product beyond that nation’s borders. This implies the smoker of the cigarette, our sniper, must be a South African. Now then, Watson, who are we aware of that has fiery red hair and hails from that part of the world?”
“Let me see. I have it! The Boer. Van Hoek. The foreman at the Silasville site. Umslopogaas said his beard was that type of red. ‘Red as fire’.”
“Again, Watson, you excel. We shall make a detective of you yet.”
“Our assailant, then, is none other than Marius van Hoek,” I said, piecing it together. “He came to England in pursuit of Wade, in order to prevent Wade sharing with anyone his discoveries at the mine regarding Harry Quatermain’s death. Since then, he has tried to eliminate us too, or at least intimidate us.”
“Such is my thinking.”
“But has Van Hoek been acting of his own accord or at the instigation of another?”
“You mean someone of superior rank, such as the Fanthorpes? It seems feasible that if Van Hoek wired the brothers about Harry Quatermain and mentioned Wade in the process, they would have instructed him to track Wade down with all due haste and ensure his silence. Failing to catch up with him before he left Africa, Van Hoek would have seen no alternative but to board the next available passenger steamer and finish the job over here.”
“I picture them in a procession of three ships, all northbound from Africa and following much the same route: Wade, then Umslopogaas, then Van Hoek, one after another, each separated by no more than a few days’ sailing. It would almost be comical if it were not so serious.”
“As soon he arrived in England, Van Hoek would have gone to Wade’s last known address, which the Fanthorpes would have supplied him. Wade, however, had taken the wise precaution of staying elsewhere, away from his known haunts. His plan to keep a low profile served him well, up until the point when he finally went to see the Fanthorpes. That was his great misstep, albeit one he could not help making.”
“By then Van Hoek was in England,” I said. “He was there at the Fanthorpe headquarters, with his employers’ connivance, lying in wait for Wade, primed, ready to pounce.”
“It was more than likely that Wade would show his face at Fanthorpe Overseas Ventures eventually,” said Holmes. “Van Hoek only had to bide his time. As soon as Wade’s meeting with the brothers was over, he simply followed him home in order to learn where he was living. Then he could kill him at leisure, when an opportune moment arose.”
“But hold on, Holmes. Quatermain, too, followed Wade back to Mrs Biddulph’s, after they talked at the pub. So Van Hoek was dogging Wade’s footsteps at the same time as our friend there.” I gestured at Quatermain’s lower legs, which we could see through the brougham’s front window.
“You seem to consider that remarkable.”
“Do not you? Quatermain is a hard man to catch unawares. Would his acute senses not have alerted h
im to Van Hoek’s presence?”
“You would have to ask the man himself about it, but my feeling is that the Boer is a master of stealth and bushcraft, as versed in the ways of stalking game as Quatermain is. Did Quatermain detect Van Hoek’s proximity to us in Kensington Gardens before he opened fire? He did not, not until the very last instant, when it was almost too late. In Van Hoek we have a hunter who, if not Quatermain’s equal, would appear to run him a close second.”
I shook my head. “How did Van Hoek poison Wade with the Devil’s Dust?”
“He must have broken into the flat while Wade was off on one of his infrequent forays into the outside world. It would not have been difficult to gain ingress through the window at the rear. A knife tip inserted between the sashes could have been used to lever the catch open.”
“There was evidence of that? Scrape marks upon the paintwork?”
“No, but then you may recall me rattling the window. That test determined that both sashes were very loose in the frame, and by drawing them apart, the gap between them could be made fairly wide, a good half-inch or so. Manipulation of the catch with a knife, performed with sufficient dexterity, could have been done so as not to leave a trace. The catch could have been closed afterwards by the same method, sliding the knife the opposite way, and Wade would have had no idea at all that anyone had entered and left. Then the Devil’s Dust was simply waiting for him, a booby trap poised to be sprung.”
“Where? Where did Van Hoek put the Dust?”
“I have an inkling, and to that end I have been in touch with Mrs Biddulph.”
“The second telegram you sent this afternoon. It was to her.”
“Precisely. I have asked the lady to set aside, with the utmost caution, a certain pair of domestic items, which I plan to collect and examine at the first opportunity. I should perhaps have fathomed sooner the means by which the Dust was introduced into Wade’s body. It is quite elementary, when one thinks about it, but then the cruellest methods of murder are often the simplest.”
Sherlock Holmes--The Devil's Dust Page 20